Hearts of Gold (14 page)

‘Last in always gets the dirty work to do. I thought you knew that.’

‘I do. I just didn’t realise there were so many bloody awful jobs that needed doing.’

‘Haydn!’

‘Sorry, Beth.’

‘You didn’t think it would be all glamorous did you? Delivering flowers to the chorus girls and wild parties backstage after the shows.’

‘No … oo …’ he said slowly. ‘I’ve hung around the Town Hall too long for that. But then again a man can live in hope.’

‘Hanging around isn’t the same as working in a place.’

‘I’ve found that out. Take no notice, Beth. You’ve caught me at a bad time. Other people get early morning willies with me it’s the evening. Besides, I know I’m damned lucky to have any kind of a job. And this one –’ he grinned slyly, ‘well it does have its compensations. Some of those chorus girls you mentioned aren’t half bad.’

‘I see.’ She gave him a telling look. ‘Does Jenny Griffiths’ know how you feel about them?’

‘That’s the other thing’ he said mournfully. ‘Working these hours, I only get to see her on Sundays.’

‘You could give her a ticket for the show and walk her home afterwards.’

‘Now that’s an idea.’

‘If you do, don’t forget to check with her father that it will be all right for her to be out so late.’

His mouth fell into a downward curve, ‘Harry’s all right, but her mother thinks Jenny could do a lot better than me.’

‘Then she’s a fool,’ Bethan protested indignantly.

‘Thanks, sis, I can always rely on you to stick up for me. By the way,’ he said casually, ‘while we’re on the subject, who’s this doctor?’

‘What doctor?’

‘Don’t give me that. The one who brought you home early Sunday morning.’

‘It wasn’t Sunday morning. It wasn’t even midnight.’

‘Whatever.’ Haydn refused to be side tracked. ‘Who is he?’

‘He works in the hospital, I hardly know him. He just happened to have a couple of spare tickets for the circus.’

‘In the Empire Theatre Cardiff?’

‘I haven’t noticed a circus in Pontypridd this week,’ she said sarcastically.

‘Beth, you don’t just happen to have a couple of spare tickets for something like that. Bill Twoomey’s been trying to get hold of some for his family for weeks, and working in the Town Hall, he’s in the know. They’re like gold.’

‘People always feel they owe their doctor a favour,’ she said carelessly. ‘Which reminds me, I’ve a bone to pick with you. Thank you for putting the money back in my box, but where’s the overcoat I asked you to get our Eddie?’ she asked, deliberately steering the conversation away from her personal life.

‘I wouldn’t have made a dog’s bed out of the ones in Wien’s.’

‘I was afraid of that when Laura told me the price. You’re still working for Wilf aren’t you?’

‘Yes, and I’m always on the lookout, you know that.’

‘Have you been paid yet?’ she asked shrewdly.

‘By Wilf? Every shift I do. On the nose.’

‘Not by Wilf, by the Town Hall?’

‘Got to work a week in hand,’ he grumbled.

‘I thought so.’ She unzipped her shopping bag and reached down for her purse. ‘Here.’ She tried to slip him half a crown.

‘No, Beth. We can’t keep relying on you to bail us out.’

‘Did Dad say that to you?’ she asked suspiciously, remembering her outburst.

‘No.’

‘Go on, take it,’ she insisted. ‘Pay me back next week. You’ll be moneybags then.’

‘I don’t need it.’

‘I know you don’t, but I don’t like the thought of you walking around without any money in your pocket. And if you see something that will suit our Eddie you can always put a bob down so they’ll hold it. Quick, take it, or I’ll be late.’

‘All right then,’ he agreed finally. ‘Thanks, Beth.’

‘See you in the morning.’

‘It’s funny to have a sister working nights.’

‘It’s funny to have a brother working,’ she smiled.

‘It’ll be funnier still to have two working.’

‘Is there any chance of our Eddie finding anything?’ she asked hopefully.

‘Not that I’ve heard.’

‘Then he’s still going down the gym?’

‘Did you really think he’d stop because of what we said?’

‘No. Just wishful thinking.’

‘He’s got to make his own life, Beth. We all have.’

‘Said with the wisdom of old age?’ she laughed.

‘You don’t do anywhere near enough of that, sis.’

‘What?’

‘Laugh,’ he said seriously as he walked away down High Street.

She had little time to think about what Haydn had said as the tail end of the evening dragged on into night. The maternity ward was never peaceful. As soon as one babies’ feeding time was over, there was the next to supervise. In between there were restless mothers to soothe and an admission who’d gone into labour three weeks before time. With only one second-year trainee and two ward maids to help her, she did the best she could, detailing the maids to the routine tasks of feeding and changing the babies, and entrusting the care of the patient to the trainee when she had to leave the labour ward. At a quarter-past midnight the baby was born with a minimum of fuss, but before the trainee could take him to the nursery the mother began to haemorrhage.

Bethan’s first instinct was to shout for help, then with a sinking heart she realised she was it. The senior nurse on duty wasn’t even a qualified midwife.

Taking a deep breath; she subdued the tide of panic.

‘Take the baby to the nursery, then bring a sterile pack and the drugs trolley straight here. Then telephone for the duty doctor. Hurry!’ she shouted as the trainee stared, mesmerised by the rapidly deepening puddle of blood on the rubber lined bed sheet.

The girl looked from the bed to Bethan, wrapped a towel tightly around the baby, and ran.

At that moment the responsibility she had so proudly assumed crushed Bethan with the devastating effect of a collapsing pit shaft.

The woman on the bed was slipping away, already in the semi-comatose state that precedes death from massive blood loss.

Bethan lifted the thin calloused hand, took the barely perceptible pulse and studied the patient. Her face was prematurely aged, lined by years of worry, childbearing and trying to make ends meet.

The admission card had detailed this as her eleventh pregnancy, but Bethan had no way of knowing how many of her other children had survived, or how many orphans there’d be if she died.

The trainee returned with the trolley and Bethan set to work, praying that her fumbling efforts would be enough; she spent the following hour and a half pounding and kneading the patient’s uterus, desperately trying to recall everything that had been done in similar cases when she’d stood by as an interested pupil.

Long before the hour and a half was up she had good cause to regret her lack of foresight in not realising just how swift and sudden the transition from onlooker to nurse in charge would be.

‘Trouble, Nurse Powell?’

She turned her head. Andrew was standing in the doorway of the delivery room, cool, unflustered and incredibly handsome in a black evening suit, boiled shirt, black tie and white collar.

‘The patient’s haemorrhaging,’ she said harshly, turning back to the bed. ‘I’m doing what I can, but it’s not enough.’

He stepped closer, taking off his coat. ‘What do you think?’ he asked briefly. ‘Operate?’

‘You’re the doctor.’

‘And you’re the nurse,’ he said evenly. ‘You must have seen a dozen cases like this.’

‘Operate,’ Bethan agreed.

*      *      *

He used the small theatre in the outside corridor, and as Bethan couldn’t leave the ward in charge of a trainee, he asked the sister from the men’s ward who had a qualified staff nurse in attendance to help him. As soon as the duty porters wheeled the patient out, Bethan checked the ward.

The maids had just finished the two o’clock feed and, for once, all the mothers were either sleeping or resting peacefully. She told the trainee to clean the labour room and change the bed and asked one of the maids to make tea and bring her a cup in the sister’s office. Emergency or not, she still had to update the patients’ record cards, and she felt as though someone, or something, had pulled her energy plug. It would be difficult to keep her eyes open until her shift finished at seven.

She closed the office door behind her. The fire was smoking miserably behind its tarnished mesh guard. She unhooked the metal screen from the iron grate and tried to poke some life into the coals.

The crust of small coal broke, revealing glowing embers beneath. She replaced the guard and kicked off her shoes, resting and warming her feet on the hearth kerb. The ward maid knocked the door and brought in her tea. For once it was fresh, not stewed.

Revelling in the luxury of being able to put her feet up she leaned back on her chair and glanced up at the uncurtained windows. White streaks of rain were lashing down on the black glass. She felt warm, cosseted and comfortable, ensconced in an overworked nurse’s idea of heaven.

After half an hour of writing, she left the office to check the ward. Everything had remained quiet, so she returned to the record cards. She was still sitting; pen in hand, cards on lap, in front of the fire when Andrew walked in.

‘She’s very weak.’ He shook the flat of his hand from side to side. ‘We’ll know one way or the other tomorrow.’

‘The birth was straightforward. No problems,’ she explained defensively. ‘When it happened it was so sudden …’

‘Believe me; she wouldn’t have lasted until I got here if you hadn’t done what you did.’ He untied the green gown he was wearing and pulled down the mask. ‘I’ll get rid of these. Want some tea?’

‘I ought to see to the patients.’ She rose stiffly from her chair, putting the record cards on to the desk.

‘There’s nothing for you to do.’ He pushed her back into her seat. ‘Sister Jenkins from upstairs is staying in the theatre with the patient. I thought it best not to move her for an hour or two. She’ll call if we’re needed. Tea?’ he repeated.

‘Yes please.’ She sank back down and checked her watch. Half past three. Another three and a half hours before the night shift ended.

Andrew returned. He was in shirt sleeves, his black tie hanging loose around his neck, his coat slung over one shoulder. ‘Obliging ward maids you have there. They said they’ll bring in fresh cups as soon as it’s made.’ He sat in the chair behind the desk and swung his feet on to the wall. Crossing his hands behind his head he closed his eyes and leaned back.

The clean, sharp smell of male perspiration tinged with the heady scent of his cologne filled the warm office. Shy and a little embarrassed by the unaccustomed intimacy, Bethan returned to the record cards.

The maid brought the tea with a quick curtsy and a shy glance at Andrew. He sat up leaning over the desk he lit a cigarette with a heavily engraved gold lighter. ‘Cigarette?’ He pushed his case and lighter towards Bethan.

‘I don’t smoke.’

‘I should have remembered. Sorry I took so long to get here.’ He inhaled deeply and blew long thin streams of smoke from his nostrils. ‘I was at the tennis club ball in the Park Hotel. The message bounced from home to the Park Hotel twice before the porter found me.’

Bethan knew from his dress that he’d been at a formal “do”.’ There was no reason for her to be upset, but the thought of him laughing, dancing and talking to other girls hurt her with a pain that was almost physical.

‘I would have asked you to come with me, but you were on duty,’ he murmured as though reading her thoughts.

‘How did you know I was on duty?’ she broke in quickly. Too quickly. She could have kicked herself when she saw his wry smile of amusement.

‘I read the duty roster for this ward.’

‘You read the rosters?’

‘Among other things. You’re off on Wednesday and Thursday this week.’

‘Off the ward, but I still have to work for my certificate.’

‘All work and no play makes Jill a dull girl.’

‘Possibly, but I’m not Jill.’ She paused as it hit home that the sour note in her voice sounded exactly like the one that dogged her mother’s speech.

‘Laura and Trevor spent their free day in Cardiff. I had hoped we could follow their example.’

‘And do what?’

‘Window shop, see a film, eat. The things that normal people do outside of hospitals and infirmaries. Pick you up in Station Square at ten on Wednesday morning.’

‘I can’t afford the time.’

‘Of course you can,’ he said in exasperation. ʻThat’s why you’re given days off. To do nothing in particular. Even the hospital board recognises that you can’t work people like machines. Ten, Station Square?’

She stared into the fire, refusing to look at him. She was honest enough to admit to herself that she would rather go out with Andrew than any man she’d ever met. One evening in his company had been enough for her to “fall for him”, to use Laura’s language. But the sheer intensity of her feelings terrified her. He was a doctor. He was rich. He could have any girl he wanted – and probably had, she thought cynically.

She realised already that she wanted him to regard her as something more than just a diversion from boredom, and she doubted that he’d see a nurse from the wrong side of the tracks as anything else. She also had a shrewd suspicion that one date with Andrew John could, if she wasn’t careful, make her reject out of hand anything less that other men had to offer.

‘I assure you, that although I’m a doctor and you’re a nurse, my intentions are strictly honourable.’

‘I don’t doubt it.’

‘It’s more than just this doctor-nurse thing isn’t it?’ he asked. ‘Is it Laura’s brother, or that porter? Because if it is I’ll bow out now.’

‘Nothing like that,’ she replied swiftly.

‘Then what?’

‘Nothing,’ she said decisively, sweeping her doubts to the back of her mind. ‘I’ll meet you in Station Square, only at twelve, not ten. I’m on nights again tomorrow and I’ll need a couple of hours sleep.’

‘Good,’ he smiled. ‘Now that’s settled I can go and check on my patient, with luck on my way home.’

The money Bethan had saved for an overcoat for Eddie went on a green wool dress and a down payment on a new navy-blue coat at her Aunt Megan’s. She tried to justify the extravagance with the thought that there’d be extra money in her pay packet at the end of the week, but she still hid her new clothes from everyone except Maud.